


Me Too

by closemyeyesandleap



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5x15 never happens, Episode: s05e14 The Devil Complex, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Women Supporting Women
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 02:05:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16296212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closemyeyesandleap/pseuds/closemyeyesandleap
Summary: May comforts Daisy when the removal of her inhibitor brings up painful memories.





	Me Too

**Author's Note:**

> TWs for descriptions of rape, including rape of a minor, as well as some internalized victim-blaming.  
> Please proceed with caution and self-care.
> 
> ALSO this is a 100% Daisy-supportive story. If that's not your thing, please just don't read. There's lots of other stuff out there from other perspectives.

_Not again._

As May descended from the Zephyr, May’s fury at Coulson was matched only by her fear.

He’d been captured before, sure, but now, when his health was so delicate?

May closed her eyes and focused on her breaths. They’d find him. They always did. 

He wasn’t going to perish at Hale’s hands. He wouldn’t be felled by an Asgardian scepter with a five-year delay.

He certainly would not die from his own stupid heroics.

She wouldn’t allow it.

Silence pervaded throughout the Lighthouse as May, Piper, and the other members of her small team entered. May glanced down the empty hallways.

Piper voiced her confusion. “Where is everybody?”

They entered the control room. Finding it deserted, May headed to the med bay.

YoYo lay asleep, her head propped up on pillows. Mack dozed in a chair next to the bed, his leg wrapped in a bandage tinged in dried blood. As May entered the room, he blinked and opened his eyes. 

May’s eyes flitted to Mack’s wound. “What the hell happened?”

Mack glanced at YoYo, who stirred but did not awake. Grimacing, he pulled himself to his feet and gave a slight nod toward the door. 

May exited and Mack limped after her. As soon as Mack shut the door of the med bay, May squared her shoulder and stared at Mack, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s a long story,” Mack sighed. “But the leg’s fine.”

May nodded. “Call the team together.”

Mack looked down. “May… you need to see something.”

May’s eyes flashed. “The rift?”

Mack shook his head. “Nah, we got it closed, but––”

“Then what’s the problem?” May exclaimed, losing her patience. “Hale took Coulson; we’re wasting time. Where’s Daisy? We have to move!”

“That’s the thing. That’s what you need to see.” At the flash of concern in May’s eyes, Mack quickly added, “Everyone’s alive. But, well…” He limped over to a chair at the control panel, sinking into it. He searched for a moment, taking only a moment to find the footage he was seeking.

May would have to see to understand.

He knew that he barely did. 

May approached the table, staring at the footage of an empty room. A table––or maybe a bed?––stood in the middle, covered by a plain white sheet. Plastic fluttered in the background.

Impatience and concern flared inside her in equal measure. She read sadness in Mack’s tone of voice, in his unwillingness to come out and say what had happened, yet Coulson was out there. Sick. Under Hale’s control.

They were losing time.

May continued to watch the screen. Then, a dark figure appeared in the frame, carrying a mass over its shoulder. May squinted.

Her stomach dropped.

The mass was Daisy.

Daisy appeared to be unconscious. She watched as the figure deposited her on the table and left the frame. Daisy lay still on the table.

Another figure entered the room. A man. A moment later, she saw that the man was Fitz. 

She watched in confusion as Fitz positioned Daisy so she was lying sideways on the table. He took a cord, maybe a cable, and wrapped it around her wrists and then around the table, circling it around her waist and then around her legs and feet. 

“What the hell?” She looked down at Mack.

His head was buried in his hand. He spoke slowly. “Fitz, the Doctor, I don’t even know… He decided that Daisy’s powers were needed to close the rift. So, um…” He gestured at the screen, unable to continue.

May’s eyes widened. Fitz had fastened a metal clamp to the table and was turning a screw, holding Daisy’s head in place. 

Slight movement in the footage drew May’s gaze. Daisy had begun to stir. May watched as Daisy’s eyes darted around as she began to struggle.

Fitz was nearer to the camera, gathering surgical implements.

The footage lacked sound, but May saw both Fitz and Daisy’s lips moving. 

The way Fitz moved—calm, deliberate—brought back memories May had spent the last few months suppressing, memories of watching the Doctor work. The surgically clean rooms splattered with the crimson of inhuman blood were seared into her retinas; their screams echoed in her skull.

The rate of her breathing increased, turning ragged. This was supposed to be the real world, not the Framework. She and Fitz had left those life, that shame behind––and yet there it was, there he was, out in her world, hurting those she loved. 

Daisy. 

Her eyes remained glued to the screen. Fitz had down at the table where Daisy lay, stroking her head. May felt ill. She had witnessed all too many “experiments” where feigned kindness foreshadowed hours of horror.

Witnessed? She had facilitated those experiments.

She pushed down the bile rising in her throat. 

Sure enough, seconds later, Fitz began to cut. 

May couldn’t hear Daisy’s screams, not audibly, yet they still reverberated inside her.

“She didn’t get any painkillers,” Mack muttered.

May watched as Fitz continued and Daisy cried. A moment later, she saw Fitz flinch. He began to look up, seeming to speak not to Daisy but to some unseen occupant in the room. 

Perhaps someone had entered but was beyond the reach of the security cameras? 

As the seconds ticked by, May realized that whomever Fitz was talking to was not in the room out of sight at all but seemed to be inside Fitz’s own mind. 

Fitz grew increasingly upset, whimpering, shaking, and gesturing. Meanwhile, Daisy seemed petrified with fear.

May watched as another figure entered––Jemma, she realized. She couldn’t see Jemma’s face, but it seemed like Jemma was pleading with Fitz. She pushed down her hope that Jemma had succeeded––she only needed to look at Mack’s grief-stricken face to realize that she had not.

Sure enough, another dark figure entered, gun and Deke in hand. Jemma trembled, and Fitz returned to the table where Daisy lay gasping.

After five years, May thought she had seen all sides of Daisy––her lopsided smile when tipsy, her death-scowl when angry, her wide-eyed tears when moved. 

She’d even watched her teetering on the edge of death after Quinn shot her, looking as vulnerable as a sleeping child.

As she watched the footage, though, May realized she had never seen Daisy so afraid. Terror was etched on her face as she struggled with the restraints.

May thought she had felt helpless hours before, when Hale had taken Coulson from her. But nothing could make her feel as powerless as this.

Her world was falling apart, and she was powerless to stop it.

May watched in horror as Fitz inch by inch extracted the bloody cords from Daisy’s neck and Daisy screamed and screamed. Moments later, the footage began to shake and then dissolved into static.

“Where is she?” May asked.

“Everyone went their separate ways. Fitz is locked up, Jemma’s with him I think––”

“Where is Daisy?!” May interjected. 

Mack shook his head. “Probably her room. I’m not sure. When the rift closed, everyone split.”

May glared at the blank screen then turned around, her heart pounding. “Hale took Coulson. Start trying to find anything you have on her. I’m going after Daisy.” 

Mack nodded.

* * *

May almost ran down to the residential level. She slowed when she reached Daisy’s door. Placing her ear to the metal, she listened to try to see if she could hear any sign of Daisy or feel a slight vibration that might indicate her powers.

She picked up nothing.

As gently as she could, she knocked at the door. Nobody answered. She knocked a little harder. “It’s May,” she called, hoping Daisy would hear.

Still no answer.

She tested the handle. It was unlocked. Slowly, she opened the door. The room was deserted. 

She looked around a few more times, trying to see if she had missed Daisy’s form on the floor or in a corner, but she saw nobody.

Concerned, she retreated down the hall, searching closets and bathrooms as she went. She looked in the kitchen and the gym before returning to the control room. Mack remained at the table, his head bowed. 

“I can’t find Daisy anywhere,” May told him. 

Mack sighed. “If she doesn’t want to be found, you won’t find her.” 

May nodded, crestfallen. Mack was right. Daisy had always been adept at finding the slightest spaces to hide away. She’d never find her. “I’ll be back in 10,” she told Mack.

She needed to get some things from her quarters before beginning the hunt for Coulson.

As she typed in the code to her room, her mind raced. It was all falling apart. Coulson was gone, YoYo and Mack were wounded, and Daisy…she didn’t know what to do.

She pushed open her door and flinched at a flash of movement. Instinctively, she reached for the Icer at her thigh and drew it. 

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw at the end of her Icer an extended hand, fingers wide and trembling.

Daisy.

May immediately let the arm holding her weapon fall to her side. Then, cautiously, she rose her hands in a sign of surrender and knelt down, placing the Icer on the floor near the door.

“I was looking for you,” May said as she examined Daisy from across the room. “You weren’t in your room.”

Daisy blinked, her hand still extended. Then, she slowly lowered her arm. “S- sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t… I didn’t want to be there. That’s the fir…” she stopped.

May heard her unfinished sentence. _That’s the first place he’d look._

May inched forward across the room until she was by Daisy’s side. She lowered herself onto the floor next to the younger woman, though careful to allow a few feet to separate them.

“Mack showed me what happened.” May whispered. 

Daisy didn’t respond. Her eyes fell and something strange passed over her face.

May stomach twisted as she recognized Daisy’s expression.

Shame. 

May swallowed. “You did nothing wrong.” Daisy’s eyes squeezed shut and then she returned her gaze to in front of her. Daisy continued to stare ahead, her eyes blank. May’s eyes lingered on the swatch of cotton covering Daisy’s neck and the shadow of dried blood darkening Daisy’s collar.

“I’m here.”

They sat in silence for several minutes. May felt paralyzed, inadequate.

Why had Coulson been so stupid as to allow Hale to take him?

If he were here, he would know what to say. He would know how to comfort Daisy, how to alleviate even a small portion of her pain.

May didn’t have that gift. She knew of nothing she could do or say to make the situation better.

So she sat there, next to Daisy, watching her. She studied her own breath flowing in and out of her aching chest and willed Daisy to breathe.

Minutes later, Daisy’s barely-audible voice broke the silence. “I, um, when I was about fif- fifteen,” she whispered, “the family I was living with they, um, had a son. He was a freshman in college. He’d visit the house on the weekends.” 

Daisy still hadn’t looked at her. Her voice seemed to emerge from her body without her conscious control. May’s stomach twisted.

Daisy continued, her voice slow and flat. “He, uh, he was pretty nice, at first. I kind of liked him, actually. One Saturday when he was visiting, his parents had gone out. I don’t remember where.” 

Daisy paused, and when she spoke again, May had to strain to hear her voice. 

“I was asleep. When I woke up, he was on top of me. I couldn’t move. He… he had my body pinned down. I tried to open my mouth to scream, to say no, but he just- he kissed me every time I tried to scream. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t get him off.”

Daisy blinked at the door. “The next day I smashed his Xbox and computer so his parents would kick me out. He told them that I’d made a move on him and gotten mad when he’d said no. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away.”

May felt sick again. She pushed down the first words that arose, unwelcome, inside her, the _why didn’t you tell me?_ that she knew was neither helpful nor fair. 

She knew why Daisy hadn’t said anything. Still, her mind flitted to every time—especially early in their training—when she had pinned Daisy to the floor as the girl had struggled and thought that she would vomit.

May thought of the footage she had just seen, the cables tying Daisy down, the clamp digging into her head as she screamed.

She would do anything to take away Daisy’s pain.

Daisy gave an emotionless smile. “When I started training, I thought that it would be different. I was going to be a badass ninja like you. Nobody would ever touch me again.” Her eyes fell, “Then I got superpowers of all things. Lucky me. It still didn’t change a thing.” 

Daisy turned to look at May for the first time. “I’ll never be strong enough.”

May’s heart broke but she kept her eyes locked on Daisy’s. “You _are_ strong.”

Daisy shook her head. “Not enough. Not like you.”

May shook her head, her own hidden pain flowing through her veins. “You think I’m invincible? Daisy, it’s not about being strong.” 

Cautiously, she moved closer and placed one of her hands on Daisy’s, adding the other as Daisy’s fingers wrapped around hers. “I was in my last year at the Academy, over a decade of martial arts experience under my belt. Didn’t matter. Two cadets slipped something in my drink at a house party. I could barely stand, let alone fight.”

Daisy’s eyes widened, and her fingers tightened around May’s. May caressed Daisy’s hand. She’d never told anyone, not even Phil or Andrew. But Daisy needed to know she understood. 

“Doesn’t make me weak. And you are not weak. You’re strong as hell and nothing anyone does to you can change that.”

Daisy began to shudder, and tears slipped from her eyes. “I know th- this wasn’t r- rape or anything, but this time it was worse.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Because back then, I could hate him. Because back then, I could lie to myself and say that if I had just been able to speak, to say no, then he would have stopped. But this time, I begged. I _begged_ him, and it didn’t change anything.” 

They sat in silence, hand in hand. The dim light flickered. Daisy tears slowly turned to sobs. “I’m here,” May repeated, wishing she could take Daisy anywhere but here.

A long while later, Daisy’s sobs slowed. “I’m so- I just- I don’t want to destroy the world, May,” she shuddered. 

May fixed her eyes on Daisy. “You won’t, Daisy.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. You get to choose what you do with your powers.” May knew how hollow her words sounded after what she had just seen, after what Daisy had just endured.

Daisy’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t get to choose anything.” 

May shook her head. “This, you do.” 

May traced her fingers up Daisy’s forearm, barely touching her. “Remember when you first got your powers? You Iced yourself, you ran to the containment module, you broke your own damn bones just to avoid hurting anyone else.”

She stared intensely into Daisy’s eyes. “You are powerful, but you are _not_ capable of destroying the world. Not because you’re not strong, but because you _are_.”

May doubted Daisy believed her, but she would keep telling her until she did. Daisy deserved to own her strength without fearing it. 

Daisy still trembled, but she extricated her fingers from May’s and wrapped her arms around the woman next to her. May didn’t miss the flinch of pain as Daisy’s shoulder brushed the wound on her neck. May gently stroked Daisy’s back as Daisy began to cry again. 

“Can I stay?” Daisy whispered through her tears.

May nodded. “Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts welcome.
> 
> This story is the first thing that came to my mind the morning after watching 5x14 back in March. I didn't write it back then because I _really_ didn't want to get into fights on the Internet, but on rewatch now I really wanted to put it out there.
> 
> Please let me know if I need to edit tags/rating at all.
> 
> The title obviously comes from the #MeToo movement and felt appropriate considering the content.


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